Home Schooling?

Question

I have a child myself and often wonder what the motivation for home schooling is. Why is having your child exposed to different ways of thinking such a bad thing? Couldn't you use some of the things you don't like as part of what your kids are learning as a teaching tool?

For example, if you don't believe in evolution, why not come at it from the angle of, some people might believe in this but it's not something we choose to believe?

Also, how do you have your child learn proper social skills when he or she only interacts with his or her brothers and sisters as peers?

I am not here to bash home schooling just looking for an understanding of the motivation behind doing so. I am looking forward to reading your answers.

Thank you for your in depth answers!

Answer 1

I'm a homeschooling parent. I do expose my kids to different ways of thinking. A lot of parents who homeschool use curriculums, but some parents use different methods. And every parent who uses a curriculum doesn't have to follow that curriculum to the letter. They can add and take away as they see fit in order to make learning fun for the child. As far as social skills, there are hundreds if not thousands of homeschooling support groups all over. Most parents join a few of these groups and have all their kids get together for activities. There's also extracurricular activities. My kids are in quite a few, so they have friends from there. I chose to homeschool my kids because we are a military family and we move around a lot. I noticed that my kids were having difficulty adjusting, and although it's important to learn to accept change, you can't always tell your kids "hey, we're moving again, suck it up!" Plus, the area that we're in now doesn't have a very good school system and I don't want them to fall behind. But like I said, they do still have friends in this area, plus they keep in touch with the friends they had from our last duty station. Not all homeschooled kids are sheltered.

Answer 2

*Why is having your child exposed to different ways of thinking such a bad thing?*

Part of it is that a young child (under 10 or so) is forming a sense of how the world works, but is unable to really think things through abstractly or rationally. It's developmental. (Look into Piaget if you are interested in exploring this more.) So, what happens, is the child gets one message at home and a different message at school. The parent doesn't necessarily know that the child is getting a different message at school--nor is the child even necessarily aware that what is going on at school is different than what the parents would want. But the child can be hearing it from more and more kids (or adults) and will adopt that as how things work. That's what children do--they adopt or absorb what is around them as being the 'way things work' and it becomes a part of who they are so they can function in that situation. But this may not be what parents want.

Think of it like this: would you have your child spend hours every day watching tv commericals or violent movies or programs wwhere kids are bratty and then spend time trying to teach him what you actually want him to learn? Isn't that counter-productive?

I actually don't personally know anybody who is homeschooling because they don't believe in evolution but that's what's being taught at school. We do believe in evolution (and yes, we are Christians) and we explain that there are those who take the Bible literally and believe that that's how it all came to be. So, they are learning about the different perspectives. If they were in public school, they would NOT be learning about people seeing the Bible literally.

*How do you have your child learn proper social skills when he or she only interacts with his or her brothers and sisters as peers?*

Are you suggesting, first of all, that homeschooled kids never get out of the home and never interact with other kids? This is false, which means that the question itself is unanswerable. However, lets pretend for a second that it's true. Wouldn't the kids still learn how to deal with others? Work out problems? Work with others? Would they not have more of a chance to actually interact with others than a school child who is sitting in his seat, listening to a teacher or doing work most of the time? Do siblings have such perfect relationships that they never have to learn to be polite with each other, that they don't need to learn how to help others, that they don't have problems to work out?

Plus, please think about what people did before kids were all sent off to school: they spent most of their time with their families. Were they lacking in 'proper social skills'?

It's NOT a fact that you need to be surrounded by 30 people for 12 years to develop proper social skills.

Answer 3

Thanks for asking and wanting to understand. Personally, I don't homeschool to shelter my kids; I homeschool to offer them the best possible education that I can. Individualized attention means they get to fully develop each skill without having to rush to keep up with the class or get bored going too slowly with the class.

As for the social skills, I've answered this before, but here I go: most homeschooled kids have far better social skills than kids in school. Institutionalized schooling sets up a false, and often unhealthy, social structure where kids only interact with others their age. There won't be any other time in their lives where this happens. There is no job, except maybe in movies or tv, that will put only 24 year olds, or 37 year olds all together. Also, if you remember school, you learn a lot of nasty habits and attitudes that you then have to unlearn to fit into the adult world. Personally, my goal is to raise my children to eventually be good, kind, decent adults, not to be kids who know how to gossip with other kids.

Tirade over, I must add that my kids interact with many kids daily. They take gymnastics, art class, music class, fencing and other activities with lots of kids. They go to camps and play with neighborhood friends daily after school. The stereotype that the media loves to thrust on everyone that hsers are strict, overly protective menonite-wannabes has not been my experience at all. Hsers, like the rest of the population, are a varied bunch. Like you, we love our kids and want the best for them.

Answer 4

I homeschool (actually, I unschool) my kids and we explore all theories whether it follows our traditional beliefs or not. The thing I love about homeschooling is that we CAN explore different lines of thought without fear of offending any particular group or speaking of some taboo subject such as religion.

I majored in philosophy in college and it was all about objectivity. We explored issues and problems from all angles and standpoints and I have brought that skill to my children.

We have studied Buddhism firsthand, although we are Christian. But studying other religions and beliefs acutally educate us in several ways.

1. We can better appreciate what we do believe.

2. We can strengthen further the arguments to support our beliefs.

3. We can better understand why we do not believe certain things or why we oppose them.

4. Open our minds to new ideas and possibly new beliefs.

Children do not get this in public schools. They can not discuss religion, certain ethnic cultures and various philosophies. There is always the fear of offending someone and of parents coming down on the school administration. With homeschooling, we are free to explore ALL ideas and beliefs.

As for the social issues, the myth that homeschooled children are socially stunted is just that - a myth. If it is done correctly, homeschooled children are actually more socially rounded and outgoing than their their public schooled peers.

My children and I belong to a homeschool group in our city and meet several times a month to have pizza and game night. We are involved in our church and have a fantastic youth group. We volunteer for a local animal rescue organization. We are very active in our community, go to cultural events and educational events. We meet people everywhere - museums, concerts, lectures, etc. We are not just sitting at home doing school work, we are out in the community actively learning.

My painfully shy 15 year old daughter has actually become more outgoing since I started homeschooling her. She is more confident and happier and it shows in her personality and he fact that she has become more outgoing.

Answer 5

To take your question backwards, my children have more peers than just their siblings. They are in several social/play groups and a few clubs/community sports. Within those groups, there are many belief systems. Many of the children my kids interact with are religious, but we are not. Many of them are vegan or vegetarian, but we are not. A few children belong to gay couples, and we are not. Some are Pagan or Wiccan or Buddist and we are none of those things. Some children are shy, others are not. Most of them come from divorced homes and have step-parents. So the only things my kids are missing out on (right now) are the drugs, the fights and the sex. All these different belief systems are teaching tools for us, and because of that, my children learn all sides to any story. They aren't told they are wrong if they share their ideas in class.

Answer 6

There are many, many reasons to homeschool.

Only the extremist fundies who get on the news really want to give their kids a narrowminded upbringing.

I am homeschooled because I was bored and underserved in school. Not because my parents -agnostics- wanted me to be sheltered from the 'real world'.

I know plenty of people who send their kids to school who handle the evolution thing exactly the way you say.

Homeschooled children gain social skills because they do NOT only interact with their siblings. I hate this idea with a flaming passion. If you homeschooled your kid, wouldn't you make sure he had social exposure? Isn't it natural for a kid to want to go and play with his friends in the park when he's little, and go out and hang with his friends when he's older? Why would that be any different for a homeschooler? Some people are perfect sensationalistic material so the media myopically jumps on them and paints them as all homeschoolers.

I've learned proper social skills because I live in the real world with other people, like people -schooled or not- do. In fact, as soon as people find out you don't go to school, they decide you aren't socialized and crap like that. First, they think I'm cool. So knowledgeable, so polite, so well-adjusted, diverse tastes. Then they find out I don't go to school, and I'm a sheltered freak who really has no social skills and is a conservative fundy Christian -I have no problems with that kind of person but I'm a liberal agnostic/atheist- who never sees the light of day.

Answer 7

I myself almost home schooled my children the motiviation behind it for me was getting them ahead. The way schools are these days children ahve a very tough time learning much of anything due to large class sizes and all the interuptions that come with it. I felt that maybe home schooling them would be a better choice, where they could learn at their own pace, have more lessons where they needed it..for instance if one had trouble with math..working extra on it would not put "the class" behind.
Also, I thought about it from the point of view that I could take them places to extend the learning on certain subjects..for instance if we were doing lessons on food, we could visit a farm, a produce plant...ect.
I also look at the social issue and had it ok'd with the school that they would attend PE there and they would still join summer leagues for sports.
What changed my mind about home schooling is when I moved. I looked at the school my sone would be attending. It wasn't over crowed, the teacher showed me what he would be learning and I was estatic. He would be learning to read, write ect. all this in Kindgergarten.
I decided to let him go to school and see how it went. He did very well I was very happy with what he was learning and the pace at which they were going.
So, he has stayed in public school. He is in the first grade this year and they are already working on odd numbers versus even numbers, telling time, on digital clocks, and non numbered clocks, reading, writing, and doing all sorts of things.
I think a lot of the home schooling happens when you do not like what your school system offers or are very religious, and believe religion should be a part of your childs school lessons. Private school anymore is very expensive.

Answer 8

Nothing wrong with home schooling, I wish I was, so I didn't have to put up with the retards I went to school with, bunch of immature whiny f*ckers I ever met!